Come Thursday night it will have been 5,479 days since Essendon won a final – the best part of 15 years. If you want to catch it on your iPhone, open YouTube, search “AFL 2004 elimination final” and note that neither of these things existed at that time.
It is dabbling in understatement to suggest much has happened during that time, particularly at Essendon. Very little of this is of relevance to the Bombers’ coach, John Worsfold, who if media speculation can be relied upon (and granted that if is doing some heavy lifting here) is coaching for his future.
Worsfold himself appeared a man at ease this week when posed the question, saying that he felt that his future at Tullamarine was secure.
“We don’t just talk about something when it’s written about in the paper, we talk about it non-stop,” he said, reminding the media throng that it’s not an unusual thing for the president and coach of a football club to regularly discuss their team’s state of affairs.
Even should Essendon’s drought extend at least another 365 days, Worsfold has done a halfway admirable job of taking a side to the finals that has spent most of the season without last year’s Crichton medallist, Devon Smith, All-Australian forward Joe Daniher and captain Dyson Heppell.
A fortnight ago, you’d not have given Essendon a puncher’s chance of beating the Eagles in Perth, but that was before Hawthorn dismantled them in front of a raucous crowd in the season’s last round. The Bombers are likely to also welcome back Heppell, along with Michael Hurley, Jake Stringer, Cale Hooker and Orazio Fantasia from an assortment of ailments from shoulders, groins and general soreness.
It is, however, the mended ankle of West Coast ruckman Nic Natanui which may cause more than a few headaches for Essendon. Worsfold said that Tom Bellchambers would be well-prepared for the clash, without any available evidence to suggest the claim was anything other than riding-with-his-heart hopefulness.
Despite their 27-point loss to Richmond in round 23, Brisbane will enter Saturday night’s final with a little more confidence. While a decade’s absence from the finals means they’ve very few who understand the contrast between the brutality of a final compared to the home and away season, they have a man there who knows it better than most – Luke Hodge.
In September, a footballer discovers who he is more times in a single afternoon than most do during the entire season, and Hodge is a man who knows himself, and his game. His presence and the ability to calm and reassure his younger teammates will be one of the interesting elements of what is perhaps the most intriguing final on the weekend.
For the past week-and-a-half, Charlie Cameron has felt Tiger defender Dylan Grimes like a phantom limb, reaching to scratch for him in the middle of the night. So close was Grimes’s checking of Cameron the last time the played that Brisbane coach Chris Fagan sought clarity from the umpires over just what was permissible.
If Cameron can get going early in front of a partisan crowd at the Gabbatoir, Grimes may need a baseball bat, which at least according to the spirit of the game, is not permissible.
In between Essendon’s drought-breaking quest in Perth and Brisbane’s return to the September stage in Brisbane, there is plenty of intrigue.
Since the conclusion of the home-and-away season, the narrative around Geelong has shifted to “have we been underestimating them”. This is largely because we are now looking at season 2019 as a body of work, as opposed to their scratchy late-season form. Of concern for the Cats, the rot set in after the bye, which has been a problem of such standing that it is now considered by some as a curse. Should they stumble after a week’s break away from home in front of 90-odd thousand against a Collingwood side that has rediscovered its joie de vivre, the curse will be a thing, as will the noise coming down the highway about not hosting a final in Geelong.
On stumbling, there’s been plenty of that from Greater Western Sydney in the back end of the season. On Saturday they host a Bulldogs team that has quietly gone about establishing what is arguably the game’s best midfield that, with Marcus Bontempelli, Josh Dunkley and Jack Macrae, has plenty of bite.
But the game’s old salts will tell you that it’s hard-nosed defence that wins you finals, and this is where questions over the Bulldogs remain. While they may be an irresistible force their backline is far from an immovable object – something that will be brought into relief with this year’s Coleman medallist, Jeremy Cameron lining up at full-forward for the Giants.
How it all plays out of course is a question that remains unanswered, and with the possible exception of Thursday night, this weekend represents one of the most intriguing week of finals for some time… although not perhaps as long as 15 years.
